Students organize food pantry drive

Friday

Nov 23, 2012 at 10:38 AMNov 23, 2012 at 10:40 AM

Luke Smucker

Last Friday, Health Occupation Students of America Organization, part of the Livingston Area Career Center, held its second annual food drive with the goal of providing non-perishable foods and monetary donations to the Livingston County Community Food Pantry.Health science instructor at LACC and the HOSA sponsor Ruth Rodino said last year she and the HOSA students collected 200 pounds of food and around $75 in donations. This year, donations were down at $61.44, but food donations were up significantly, with a total of 887 pounds of donated items. This bounty was presented by HOSA members to the food pantry Nov. 16. The students helped give to the food pantry and in return they received a life lesson, Rodino said.“The kids had no clue, they hadn’t really had that need in their own lives,” said Rodino. “So to see this amount of food being given away to families was awesome for them.”On Nov. 9, Rodino said her students put up posters around the school advertising a hat day, in which students could pay three food items or $2 and they would be allowed to wear a hat for the day (usually an offense on school grounds). At the same time, Rodino and her students in the Certified Nursing Assistance program challenged the rest of the LACC classes to see who could raise the most food donations. “I think sometimes if you have an incentive, kids are more apt to do something,’ said Rodino, who challenged her own classes to donate enough to fill the PTHS Marching Indians’ music trailer. Rodino didn’t believe the goal would be met, let alone surpassed, but that is what happened this year.“ With the amount of food that we did have, we were left with the question of how we would get it all over to the food pantry. We loaded a lot of stuff in there (the trailer) and one of my students had a full car. Just getting that amount of food items transported was a big undertaking.”Rodino said she feels its necessary to impress upon the students the importance of being community members. She believes in selflessness, a “not always about me” kind of mentality and in showing her students that life happens outside of the classroom, too. “They do go to a clinical site and get those hands-on skills, but I don’t think students always realize what all is outside their world,” said Rodino. “At the end of the day, it was so good to see my students’ expressions. They were just in awe and it was awesome to see the learning process come to life for them. It’s not always what you read in books or talk about in class, it’s about that world learning and world experience that really sticks with them.”After congratulations from both LACC Director Tera Graves and PTHS Principal Eric Bohm on a job well done, Rodino said she hopes the focus of the spotlight will be on the students who donated and put everything together. She hopes her students have come away with the fact that their involvement in the community matters and as they progress in their careers and continue on in education, she hopes they will see places where they can contribute to whatever community they are a part of.“I was just a coordinator,” said Rodino. “It was great to be recognized and we had to have permission to wear the hats, but I had several teachers who told me ‘good job’ but I wished they were telling that to the students. I told them I was so proud of them for what they did and I am looking forward to keeping this tradition going for years to come.”

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